The Priory of Tinmouth in Northumberland was a cell of St. Alban’s Abbey. “One Simon of Tinmouth claimed a right to two corodies, or the maintenance of two persons in the priory; but which the prior and monks denied. This cause was brought before the Abbot of St. Alban’s and his Court-baron, who appointed it to be tried by combat on a certain day before him and his barons. Ralf Gubion, prior of Tinmouth, appeared at the time and place appointed, attended by his champion, one William Pegun, a man of gigantic stature. The combat was fought. Pegun was defeated, and the prior lost his cause; at which he was so much chagrined, that he immediately resigned his office.” This judicial combat is the more remarkable, that it was fought in the court of a spiritual baron, and that one of the parties was a priest. [Illustration] <g>ELTHAM HALL</g>, p. 111.--It was whilst residing at his Palace of Eltham that King Richard II. resolved upon the murder of the Duke of Gloucester. “Unable,” says Froissart, “to conceal any longer the great hatred he bore to his uncle, he determined to have him cut off according to the advice given him, namely, that ‘it was more advisable to destroy than to be destroyed.’ Accordingly, the king having rode to the Castle of <g>Pleshy</g>, about thirty miles from London, with fair words cajoled the duke out of his castle, and was attended by him to a lane that led to the Thames, where they arrived between ten and eleven o’clock at night. Here the Earl-Marshal, who there lay in ambush, arrested him in the king’s name, and forced him towards the Thames in spite of his cries to the king to deliver him. He was conscious, from the moment of his being thus arrested, that his end was resolved on; and it was confirmed to him by the king turning a deaf car to his complaints, and riding on full gallop to London, where he lodged that night in the Tower. The Duke of Gloucester had other lodgings; for whether he would or not, he was forced into a boat that carried him to a vessel at anchor in the Thames, into which he was compelled to enter. The Earl-Marshal embarked also with his men, and having a favourable wind and tide, they fell down the river, and arrived late on the morrow evening at Calais, without any one knowing it but the king’s officers. The Earl-Marshal, as governor, could enter Calais at all hours, without any one thinking it strange: so he carried the duke to the castle, and there placed him in confinement.... In the meantime King Richard, leaving the Tower at an early hour, rode to his palace of <g>Eltham</g> and there remained; while the same day toward evening, the Earls of Arundel and Warwick were both brought to the Tower and there confined, to the great surprise of the citizens. But to return to Calais: When the Duke of Gloucester saw himself shut up in the castle, abandoned by his brothers, and deprived of his attendants, he began to feel alarmed; and addressing himself to the Earl-Marshal--‘For what reason,’ he inquired,